Scifi… From A Certain Point Of View

Tag Archives: joss whedon

There are some purists that refuse to accept any alterations to the gospel according to their comic book creators. I get it but what works in one medium may not translate to a different medium. A good example would be the first Fantastic Four movie where the origin story from the comic was changed to include Victor von Doom with the rest of the gang to be bombarded with cosmic rays which endowed them with superpowers though, Doom’s powers are not clear or as distinct as the Four.

Another alteration would the first Spiderman movie with Tobey Maguire. We still get the origin of Parker getting bitten by a radioactive spider but the alteration would be the webs Spiderman now can create organically. Does this change the dynamic of the character? I don’t think so. Sure in The Amazing Spiderman we are treated to another origin story but this time Parker creates the web shooter ala the comic book origin storyline. Again, did this change Parker or make him more like the comic book series? The movie sucked but Parker was the same as this did not enhance the character. His ability to create webs either organically or artificially was not as important as his ability to use the webs and swing through the city. Now, if you look at the video below of a Japanese version of Spiderman, I would have gone apeshit if this were to happen here.

So, Hank Pym didn’t create Ultron in the MCU; I can live with this alteration. I’m more concern about Ant Man sucking like Thor 2.

According to Joss Whedon, “Of all the heat I’ve ever taken, not having Hank Pym [in the Avengers] was one of the bigger things.” However, Whedon contests that it didn’t make sense to bring in Ant-Man into Earth’s mightiest movie heroes.

In an long interview with Empire Magazine, Avengers: Age of Ultron director Joss Whedon explained why Marvel kept Scott Lang away from the rest of the Marvel gang, and why the comic creator of Ultron (Ant-Man) would no longer be the villain’s creator in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but Tony Stark.

This caught my eye yesterday and I wanted to chime in about the idea of a female director when it comes to the upcoming Wonder Woman movie. Let me begin with… WE HAD A FUCKING DIRECTOR CALLED JOSS WHEDON WHO WAS NOT ONLY GOING TO DIRECT THE MOVIE BUT ALSO WRITE IT AND WHAT HAPPENED NEXT IS WHY DC/WB IS PLAYING CATCH UP!!! I’m sorry, I lost my cool. This is a very, very sore subject with me.

Back in 2007, Joss was working on the script for a Wonder Woman movie and while the studio, I believe, liked the script had wanted to go in a different direction. It happens all the time but I hated the studio for letting Joss go cause as we all know he went on to direct Marvel’s Avengers which kicked major ass. Those who know Joss’s work with Buffy, Angel, Serenity and Dollhouse will know how much he loves having female characters that are strong and on par to their male counterparts. Imagine if Joss did a Wonder Woman movie and how that tide might have turn to DC/WB favor instead of Marvel? The outcome would have been tremendous. Yet, one could say that Joss might have been our last hope but to quote Yoda, ‘There is another.”

David E. Kelley, writer and tv producer, of such shows like L.A.Law, Picket Fences, Ally McBeal and Harry’s Law, to name a few, had many strong female characters. In 2011, David took a crack at bringing back Wonder Woman to the small screen. The pilot that he wrote failed to get picked up but upon viewing this unfinished product, I saw this Wonder Woman version to have great potential that mirror the comic at that time. So, when I read yesterday about finding a female director to the upcoming Wonder Woman movie with Gal Gadot, I have to ask if this is even the right move.

Do not take what I said about female director out of context. All I want is to have the right director for the right job regardless of the gender. Yes, it would be great for a female director to break into the all male directors group which have direct 99.999% superhero movies past, present and future. Thor 2 might have been the first with Patty Jenkins but departed the project when there were difference between her and Marvel. Even Portman wanted off the Thor 2 but had to stay due to her contractual obligations. Does that mean female director can’t helm big projects? No, but when there are restrictions or a conflicting visions of the project, the studio is going to win 9 out of 10 times; hence Edgar Wright leaving the Ant-Man project so it’s not a gender thing.

Still, I don’t want a female director for female sake. Though, the first thought about a great female director would be Kathryn Bigelow. With Zero Dark Thirty and The Hurt Locker being my two favorites movies of Kathryn, I would nominate her instantly to the top of the list. Sadly, I can’t think of another female director to this project. Now, having said this, when Star Trek needed to be rebooted, Abrams was brought in to direct it. He even admitted to not being a Star Trek fan and yet he made one the best Star Trek films. Yet, Shatner, our Captain Kirk, made of one of the worst Trek films. So despite being associated with a franchise it’s not a given that success will come. The same can be said about the female director and Wonder Woman; it would be great but not necessary.

Warner Bros. is reportedly looking for a female director to helm the recently announced Wonder Woman movie. The film would mark the first time the superhero has had her own standalone film, and also the second time a female director leads such a production.

In the aftermath of the studio’s announcement of nine superhero films to premiere between 2016 and 2020, starting with Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, WB is trying hard to respond to criticism that superhero films are ruled by males, both in front and behind the camera. Additionally, critics have accused Hollywood of lack of diversity in casting main characters.

“She was a little bit like Angelina Jolie,” Whedon said with a laugh. “She sort of traveled the world. She was very powerful and very naïve about people, and the fact that she was a goddess was how I eventually found my in to her humanity and vulnerability, because she would look at us and the way we kill each other and the way we let people starve and the way the world is run and she’d just be like, None of this makes sense to me. I can’t cope with it, I can’t understand, people are insane. And ultimately her romance with Steve was about him getting her to see what it’s like not to be a goddess, what it’s like when you are weak, when you do have all these forces controlling you and there’s nothing you can do about it. That was the sort of central concept of the thing. Him teaching her humanity and her saying, OK, great, but we can still do better.”

While I have downloaded the pilot from David E. Kelley‘s Wonder Woman, I have yet to watch it past the opening teaser. There is just something that I can not figure out. I am still not clear why adapting a Wonder Woman to the big or small screen has become nearly impossible to do. Granted, Lynda Carter‘s WW has had lots of flaws but it has at the very least set a standard which all other tv comic book adaptation should follow. Hell, they were able to do a World War II setting for one season and then it was picked up by another network, WW was brought to present day; that is back in the 70’s.

I am still sadden by the loss of Whedon’s take over WW just because I know his track record on strong female characters throughout his writing and directing career. Whatever happens to the future, I do not want to see a “No Tights, No Flights” direction like Smallville. Don’t get me wrong, Smallville works for itself on its own terms. WW needs a mythology that works for today’s audience, a costume that pay homage to the history but it is more functional, and an actress who can pull it off. Doing some research, I came across this little tidbit below. Do you agree, if it is true???

Throwing in my two cents on this topic, there are a few things that I want to chime in about on Firefly. Having just come off watching Buffy/Angel only on dvd, I was eager to see this show despite it being on a friday night. The first episode that aired was, “The Train Job.” This turned out to be the second episode in the show but the first one to be aired.

Watching the first couple of minutes, I quickly got it. What nailed my love for this show was Mal kicking one of the henchmen into the Serenity‘s air in-take vents when he refused to take the money back. Mal tried it again with another henchmen and it worked but it was one of those moments, “He f$%&ing killed a bad guy” and yet it was one of the funniest moments of Firefly I truly loved.

Having said all this, I remembered that Joss hated the fact that Fox played the episodes out-of-order. I understand this completely but for once, I agreed with Fox on delaying the pilot episode till much later. The Train Job quickly filled in to us as to who are these people are and the world they lived in. I’m all for a pilot to show how this group came together but I had I watched it in the original order I might not have loved the show in the same manner. It’s like watching Star Wars Episode 4 first and then 5, 6 and then the prequels 1, 2, 3. If you watch it numerically the impact and the reveal of Vader as Luke’s father is completely lost. The same can be said for Mal’s humor and point of view.

So, where does this leave us? Back where all of us are, wanting more Firefly. Can lightning in the bottle be captured again? I don’t think so. Let Firefly rest in our hearts and dvd players as is.

Firefly, Joss Whedon’s short-lived space western from 2002, has been in the news lately, with fans getting extra revved over the announcement that The Science Channel would air reruns of the show. After Nathan Fillion made an offhand comment about wishing he could buy the rights, fans launched a campaign to do just that; Fillion gently told them to calm down.

Why all the hubbub? Perhaps it’s because for many, Firefly represented the best of Whedon’s gritty, funny worlds, with commentary on government control, religion, and morality. Perhaps because it’s his show with the shortest run. (Even Dollhouse got two seasons on Fox, from 2009-2010.) But as evidenced by charity screenings and comic continuations, the Browncoats’ love will never waver.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette got a chance to chat with Gail Berman, who served as the Fox Entertainment president during Firefly’s run and had to be the one to cancel the show. Despite her personal connections to Whedon–indeed, she’s served as executive producer on Buffy and Angel–Berman knew that she had to make the painful decision.

We start off in 2005, Joss Whedon was signed on to write and direct Wonder Woman. While this sat well with me since Joss knows who to write and direct strong female leads, the studio on the other hand had other ideas and kicked Joss off the protect. I did find some interesting illustrations of what the new Wonder Woman would have looked like.

In 2007, director George Miller was undertaking a JLA movie before the writer’s strike. Click here to check out this early blog I did in 2007 about some casting news and a pick I thought who would work well as the new Wonder Woman and there was talk about Jessica Biel. A few days later, the news I discovered was the Theresa Palmer was the new Wonder Woman in the JLA movie. Click here to read more. And then, there was a recasting with Theresa in so much that she would be playing another character in the DC universe but in the end the writer’s strike killed the plan.

Last year, we had news about Wonder Woman not on the big screen but on the original tv screen which the great Linda Carter heralded many years ago. Word today, the news is not good as even the David E. Kelly could not get this project off the ground either. So, this begs the question, would want to see this Amazon on the big or small screen? And, who would be worthy to fill the boots of Wonder Woman?

Proposed ‘Wonder Woman’ TV Series Meets More Rejection

Posted by The Movie God | January 9th, 2011 at 3:17 pm | Trackback

This past October we were informed that after many failed attempts to turn Wonder Woman into a popular movie franchise, DC Comics would be teaming up with Warner Brothers TV and top-tier showrunner, David E. Kelley, in hopes of developing a new TV series based on the popular comic book heroine.

Sadly, for fans of the superhero who have been itching to see her in some form of modern live-action entertainment, this day will not come any time soon.

After writing a spec script for the pilot episode, Kelley and friends set off to make their pitch to the various networks. Fox turned them down, as did ABC, who are owned by Disney, the company that purchased Marvel for $4 billion. You can see where that might be an issue.